Sunday, December 9, 2012

The Pope of the Moment

Everywhere in the
history of religion, in various forms, we encounter the significant conflict
between the knowledge of the one God and the attraction of other powers that
are considered more dangerous or nearer at hand and, therefore, more important
for man than the God who is distant and mysterious. All of history bears the
traces of this strange dilemma between the non-violent, tranquil demands made
by the truth, on the one hand, and the pressure brought to make profits and the
need to have a good relationship with the powers that determine daily life by
their interventions, on the other hand.

Christianity
and the Crisis of Cultures, 98

Reflection – Well, on this Second Sunday of Advent we are focusing on John the
Baptist and the call to repentance. We are meant to live in a holy longing for
God’s coming, in a state of vigilant watchfulness, expectant hope, constant
zeal for the kingdom of God and its growth in the world.

We have to take into account the sad
reality that we do not always live like that. And Ratzinger pin points, I
think, exactly what goes on in our hearts and minds when we allow our desire
for God to grow cold and our longing for the kingdom to become a remote
abstract notion.

It’s all these other powers and
principalities, so to speak, who seem to be offering us a better deal, I guess.
At least we sure are in a hurry to take the offer! It’s like all those shady
operators who offer suspiciously good discounts and payment schedules and
interest rates (No payments due for the first twelve months! No interest
charged! Absolutely free!).

Well, we bite on that. And of course,
besides the carrot of easy money and immediate returns on investment, there is
the stick of coercion—social coercion and ostracization, ‘going along to get
along’—all the ways the world uses to enforce whatever rigid orthodoxy the
powers that be decide we should subscribe to today.

All of these things, if we let them have
sway over us, are the immediate powers that can drown out the voice of God in
us and quench the desire of God in us.

The ancient Gnostics posited a universe
where God was ‘up there’ somewhere in the highest heavens, but separated from
us by layers upon layers of hostile archons ringed around the earth. Liberation
consisted of getting past these encircling archons by obtaining secret esoteric
knowledge, so as to attain union with the One.

There is a thread of truth in this Gnostic
cosmology. We do experience that ‘all that stuff’ gets between us and God, that
the lure of riches and the fear of humiliation, rejection, persecution can pose
a formidable barrier between God and us. And many seem to allow their lives to
be ruled by the ‘archons’ of this present age.

Where the Gnostics went wrong was that
their god was passive one, distant and removed, not really personally engaged
in this battle. Our God has come down from the heavens and is with us, in us,
around about us, continually. Yes, as Ratzinger points out, he is tranquil,
non-violent, respecting of our freedom. But He is with us, nonetheless.

And it is not some esoteric knowledge or
secret wisdom that wins the battle for us. We are not saved by knowledge, but
by love. The call to love, to selflessness, to service, to laying down our
lives for those around us—this is the constant call of Truth to us, the constant
call countering the clamorous voices of the world, the flesh, the devil.

God may be, and often is, silent, hidden,
mysterious. But the call to love in this moment is always here, always evident
if we choose to give it our attention, the vicar of Christ in the present
moment, we may call it. The Pope of the moment, so to speak.

And it is this call to love and our radical
choice to pursue it that frees us from the degrading slavery to concupiscent
desire and cringing fear in this world, free to open our hearts to the God who
comes, who is here, who desires to establish his kingdom in and through us.

2 comments:

And it is not some esoteric knowledge or secret wisdom that wins the battle for us.

I think you are right. Many of us have an overly pessimisstic view of the secular world which carries over into the pragmatic ways they want to spread the good news... I am not sure what really happened with John out there in the desert.... But I believe it is still happen ending today...despite ourselves. Men and women are still falling in love with God. They realize how much God has loved them when they were unlovable, how God trusted them when they could not trust themselves. ... What else would make you fall in love with God?

It is our weakness and our brokenness that brings us to God. Deep down inside we know it is only His Mercy that we can rely on, turn to , rest in. Such conversion, such love can only result from freedom , not correctness, orthodoxy, after all means true praise, not tru understanding.

Those people must likely to change our hearts, are the ones who love us. The ones willing to walk with us, who suffer with us and for us, who love us despite the mistakes, the defects, the messes we make of these. These are the ones who will reveal God to people.

It is more than words, doctrines, mental belief systems. It is relationship, whenever we are connected to each other. Salvation cannot happen apart from the Incarnation.